By the Rev. Canon J. E. Jackson, F.8.A. 



171 



of the little stream that runs here. A great many of our rivers, 

 especially those of one syllable, have, in spite of all changes, pre- 

 served their ancient Celtic names. A village or town built by the 

 river took the name : Frome, for example. How or when your 

 stream got the name of Harden, I do not know ; but Drayton, in 

 his geographical poem, called " Poly-olbion," written in the reign of 

 James I., knew nothing of the Marden. He says : — 



" Then Bradon gently brings forth Avon from her source, 

 While southward making soon, in her most quiet course, 

 Receives the gentle Calne." [Part I., 3rd Song, p. 43.] 



A very early chronicle, speaking of an event that took place here 

 (of which more presently), calls Calne a "Villa Regia," 1 a royal 

 vill. To our ears such a title might, perhaps, convey the idea of a 

 "Windsor Castle, a Balmoral, an Osborne : certainly nothing under 

 a Sandringham. But Calne must not be too ambitious. Kings 

 and Queens were contented in early times with much more modest 

 accommodation than is provided for them now. A villa regia in 

 Anglo-Saxon days was a house (larger or smaller as it might happen) 

 which stood upon the Crown property,and was occupied not necessarily 

 by a King, but by an officer or representative. That this was the case 

 here is proved by an old Latin poem., called the life of St. Swithin, 

 written by a monk of "Winchester, who lived about A.D. 800. 

 The writer is speaking of a certain criminal, who was sent up to the 

 principal Prceses, or Prefect — the magistrate of the district — whose 

 residence vas at Calne : " Regia quern tenuit turn Villula, nomine 

 Cal-ne" (who then occupied the King's little Villa called Calne). 8 

 From this line you learn two things, 1st, that here, a thousand years 

 ago, was the official residence of a King's representative ; and the 

 other thing is, how, if anyone should be tempted to try his hand at 

 Latin hexameters, he may introduce the name, by making two 

 syllables out of one. 



There is also another authority, one hundred and fifty years later, 



1 Marianus Scotus, in Leland's Collectanea, I„ 285. 

 2 Leland's Collectanea, I., 154. Tha author of the Latin poem was Wolstan, 

 a monk and praecentor of Winchester Cathedral, in his preface to the Life of St. 

 Swithin, addressed to Bishop iElphege. 



